“As a parting gift to you, Gen. Bathan, I will give you a new district headquarters in San Juan. I will give the next district commander, the Eastern Police District, a permanent district headquarters,” bahagi pa ng mensahe ni Zamora.

China has rejected as “unwelcome” the call of the United Kingdom, France and Germany on the South China Sea claimants to respect the arbitration ruling of 2016 and the rules-based framework laid out in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

The Philippines and China effectively consigned to limbo on Thursday the UNCLOS-based arbitral ruling in 2016 on their maritime disputes, and moved to explore instead a wider Code of Conduct for resolving conflicts in the South China Sea.

It would be a betrayal of public trust should the Duterte administration accept China’s rejection of the landmark ruling that invalidated its sweeping claim over the South China Sea, parts of which is the West Philippine Sea, former Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert Del Rosario said Saturday.